Sunday, August 16, 2015

Combating Terrorism in Cyberspace

Guest Contributor Sahar Akbarzai is a Research Associate of the Global Futures
University Consortium – an initiative of the Rutgers University MA Program in
Political Science – United Nations and Global Policy Studies.

Why
have over 20,000 foreign fighters - 3,400 fighters from Europe and the United
States alone - crossed the Turkish border into Iraq and Syria to join the
so-called Islamic State? This unprecedented wave of mostly Muslim youth who
have been recruited to the so-called Islamic State (Dacsh) speaks to
the power of its savvy social media campaign.

According
to a March 2015 Brookings Institution report, Dacsh has 46,000 Twitter accounts. However, these data only measured English, not Arabic, language accounts. Its social media followers not only utilize Twitter, but Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and thus have multiple accounts. Dacsh has an army of online followers and the group has successfully trended twitter
hashtags, broadcast well-produced videos, and disseminated its message globally (http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/03/isis-twitter-census-berger-morgan/isis_twitter_census_berger_morgan.pdf). Dacsh is said to transmit 90,000 Tweets each day, many of which are computer generated. It has extremely difficult to shut down these Tweets as they simply reappear under different hashtags. To date, US government and other nations' efforts to combat the terrorist organization's social media campaign have been a dismal failure.

But
the real success of the so-called Islamic State comes from the fact that these extremists know their
audience - a socially and politically disenfranchised and ostracized generation
of young Muslims, especially in Europe. And they use their sophisticated and
global marketing apparatus to prey upon the vulnerabilities of this audience.

At
last February’s summit, President Obama called upon tech companies and the
private sector to fight terrorist recruitment. Although companies like Twitter,
Facebook, and Google are offering social media training and advise to
organizations to counter extremist narratives, the real solutions are come from
ordinary but very talented Muslims all across the globe.

In
addition to encouraging the investment of Muslim start-ups, small businesses
must also join in the movement to counter extremism. The most well-known
company is Affinis Lab, an incubator that fosters the talent of Muslim
entrepreneurs all over the world to grow their companies and tackle global
challenges, such as countering violent extremism (http://www.affinislabs.com).Affinis Lab founder, Shahed Amanullah, is a
Silicon Valley entrepreneur himself and former Senior Advisor of Technology to
the Department of State from 2011-2014 (http://www.affinislabs.com/shahed-amanullah.html)

Affinis CEO Shahed Amanullah

Affinis
Lab has held “hackathons” all over the world, including the most recent one in
Abu Dhabi called the haqqathon (haqq
means truth in Arabic). Such events pose problems to participants, such as how
to make traditional Islamic scholarship relevant to the millennial generation. Participants
then must come up with digital solutions.The winning solutions are provided mentorship, investment, and even become
fully operational as start-ups with the help of Affinis Lab.

Multiple
successful social media networks and apps have been produced as a result of
these global hackathons. Amanullah has stated, “I want to build a community
that has so much going for it a person doesn’t have to leave for some illusory
utopia (referring to Dacsh). [We] are speaking to a vacuum that
exists in Muslim youth identity. It’s giving them an exciting, empowering path
to express their identity.”

A
sociopolitical atmosphere exists, especially in Europe and the United States, where
Muslim youth are being ostracized and even demonized. These youth face
education and employment discrimination as well as discrimination in terms of
religious dress, especially for Muslim women. Further, they face the constant
Islamophobic rhetoric and negative, if not racist, ads by European political
parties like The National Front and, in the United States, by groups like Stop
Islamization of America and the Freedom Defense Initiative (http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/)

Thus it is imperative that Muslim youth possess global and local connections through online social
media where they can share their stories and find solutions to their problems
that counter the solutions and rhetoric of terrorist organizations such as Dacsh.In this context, apps
have become a critical part of the solution to the efforts of terrorist
organizations to attract gullible youth.

As
Amanullah has noted, “Very simplified, radicalization is the combination of anger and
disempowerment. Entrepreneurship is the ultimate narrative of empowerment. Apps
empower them, answers their questions, and connects them with a society that
has ostracized them.” Apps that include spiritual Islam teaches alienated
Muslim youth an empowerment that Islam gives that counters the narrative of
ISIS.

The latest app produced by Affinis Lab is QuickFiqh - an
app that connects Muslim youth to mainstream Islamic scholars. Teens can ask
mainstream scholars their most pressing questions about Islamic theology in a
60 second clip and scholars provide 60 second answers in video formats while
emphasizing Islamic themes such as mercy and compassion (http://www.affinislabs.com/incubation.html).

Another app called 52Jumaa was created by tech-savvy
Muslim Australian teens Abdire Shire and Ahmed Ali. The app is designed to help
Muslim youth who are facing identity crises develop a constructive identity
over a period a period of a year, 52 Fridays which translates to 52 Jumaa. By
providing these individuals with empowering, Islamic spiritual guidance, teens
are helped to feel empowered after their one-year journey and hopefully
dissuaded from being attracted by extremist rhetoric (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF79VoijBXI).

Another app created by a Muslim entrepreneur is Pentor.
The app aims to connect and network Muslim youth with positive Muslim role
models and even professionals

Pentor aims to connect Muslim teens with Muslim professionals in their
region: including doctors, engineers, writers, and other professionals. It is especially useful as it provides much
needed Muslim youth with mentors who can guide them to possible career paths
and teaches them how to thrive in the 21st century as Muslim
professionals.More importantly,
professionals show that there is a future for Muslims in their respective
countries!

Most
of these apps to try to dissuade teens from falling into the trap of being
seduced by extremist narratives. But what about the thousands of individuals in
Syria, Iraq, and else where who have already made their decisions and left to
join Dacsh and other terrorist organizations? Social networking is
trying to reach out to them as well.

An
app called One 2 One, produced by Affinis lab, helps to identify people who
use extremist rhetoric and imagery. By identifying these individuals, Affinis
Lab hopes to steer people away from them.Another tool designed to counter terrorist propaganda is also produced
by Affinis Lab - a website called Come Back 2 Us, which reaches out
directly to individuals who have joined the so-called “Islamic State.” (http://www.comeback2.us)

This
site allows family and friends to reach out to loved ones who have left home by
posting pictures and stories in hopes it will trigger an emotional response and
persuade them to come back. Even more remarkable, it has created a digital “underground
railroad” for people who want to return home. By using an automated panic
button on the site, information will be provided to government contacts who can
help them track their way home.

Muslim
youth need to understand Islam in a way that resonates with the pressing issues
of their lives. That’s why Jihad Turk, President of Bayan Claremont Islamic
Graduate School in Southern California, has started a YouTube video series
featuring prominent imams, titled “Shakes and Shaykhs.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi3Mn4ZwcQM). But the clerics
in these videos aren’t your ordinary imams. Dressed in jeans and casual shirts,
the video series takes place in local eateries where people can hang out with imams
and discuss issues like countering extremism and even love and marriage!

The
cyber battle against Dacsh continues to be extremely challenging. Governments
must showcase and support the extraordinary work that Muslim entrepreneurs are
doing globally through social media to counter extremism. By supporting Muslim start-ups, governments
are not only standing in solidarity with their Muslim citizenry, they are also
sending a message to the so-called Islamic State that they are in culturally,
ethnically and religiously unified.

About Me

Eric Davis is Executive Director, MA Program in Political Science - Concentration in United Nations and Global Policy Studies, Professor of Political Science and the former director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. He is author of CHALLENGING COLONIALISM: BANK MISR AND EGYPTIAN INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1920-1941 (Princeton University Press, 1983; Institute for Arab Development, Beirut, 1986, and Dar al-Sharook, Cairo, 2009); STATECRAFT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: OIL, HISTORICAL MEMORY AND POPULAR CULTURE (University Presses of Florida, 1993); MEMORIES OF STATE: POLITICS, HISTORY AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY IN MODERN IRAQ (University of California Press, 2005; Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 2008; and the forthcoming, TAKING DEMOCRACY SERIOUSLY IN IRAQ (Cambridge University Press). Currently, he is writing a book on the Islamic State and the changing modalities of terrorism in the Middle East. He can be contacted at davis@polisci.rutgers.edu and @NewMidEast